Gérard Depardieu Biography

French actor Gérard Depardieu (born 1948) rose from humble
beginnings to become a worldwide movie star. The award-winning actor
has enjoyed a film career spanning more than four decades, and

has appeared in over 170 films. Many of those films have garnered him
critical and commercial successes, both in his native Europe and
around the world.

An Impoverished Upbringing

Depardieu was born in Châteauroux, a small provincial community in
central France, on December 27, 1948. His taciturn father, René
"Dédé" Depardieu, was a barely literate sheet
metal worker; his mother, Alice "Lilette" Marillier, came to
Châteauroux with her family as refugees during World War II. The
couple married in 1944 and had two children—one son and one
daughter—before the birth of Gerard. The family lived in cramped
quarters and Depardieu's father was not an active parent, so much
of the stresses of caring for three small children fell to his mother.
Depardieu, who would eventually have five siblings, became the
family's charming prankster, earning the nickname of
Pétarou, or "Little Firecracker."

When an American Air Force base set up in his hometown, Depardieu became
fascinated with Americans and their culture. He and his older brother were
regulars both on the base and at social gathering spots popular with the
American troops. By the time Depardieu completed his formal schooling in
the early 1960s—he completed only grade school, not attending
lycée, the French equivalent of high school—he stood nearly
six feet tall and could readily pass for several years older than his true
age of 13. Depardieu took to petty crime and wandering, working a series
of odd jobs such as printer's apprentice, dishwasher, traveling
salesman, and beach club attendant on the Riviera before relocating to
Paris at the age of 16.

Introduced to Acting

Depardieu arrived in Paris on a whim, following a friend who was moving to
the capital to pursue acting. Depardieu visited the drama school with his
friend and immediately showed ability as a performer. Self-doubts about
his provincial background and poor education interrupted
Depardieu's acting training for a time. However, after being taken
into prestigious acting coach Jean-Laurent Cochet's class,
Depardieu quickly honed his acting techniques. Depardieu had difficulties
speaking fluently, and began working with speech therapist Alfred Tomatis.
With Tomatis's help, Depardieu overcame his difficulties not only
with language, but with reading comprehension and recall. During his
training with Cochet, Depardieu met Elisabeth Guignot, whom he would marry
in 1970. The two had their first child, Guillaume, in April of the
following year. In 1973 the pair had a daughter, Julie.

By the late 1960s, Depardieu had begun landing roles in theater and
television productions around Paris, often playing hulking thugs in
keeping with his rough-hewn appearance. Depardieu's film debut came
in Roger Leenhardt's
Le Beatnik et le minet
, and his television debut on an episode of the French series
Rendez-vous à Bedenberg
. Depardieu's reputation grew with his strong performance in the
theatrical play
Galapagos
; although the production itself was a flop, Depardieu received good
reviews. In 1973 Depardieu co-starred in Bertrand Blier's film
Les Valseuses
(known in the United States as
Going Places
). In his biography
Depardieu
, Paul Chutkow noted that "the French critics agreed that the
film's three young actors were fresh, unconventional, and outright
brilliant." The film's plot placed its protagonists as
sexually and otherwise aggressive young people who challenged the accepted
standards of conventional society. The controversial film achieved
critical and popular acclaim, shepherding in a new era of French
filmmaking. In one of the lead roles, Depardieu was transformed from an
actor to a star.

Became European Star

After
Les Valseuses
, Depardieu became a film actor in earnest. Throughout the 1970s he
appeared in many films, typically playing thugs or deviants. Some of his
most noteworthy roles were as a peasant in Italian director Bernardo
Bertolucci's epic film
1900
, as a crude chauvinist in the sexually-charged and controversial
La Dernière Femme
(The Last Woman) and, in another film by
Les Valseuses
director Blier, as a husband who seeks to find his sexually stifled wife
a new lover in
Preparez vos Mouchoirs
(Get Out Your Handkerchiefs). Even when the films were not critically
successful, Depardieu benefited in some way. Bertolucci's
1900
was considered a cinematic flop, but offered Depardieu the opportunity to
meet and work with
American actor Robert DeNiro, who served as an inspiration to Depardieu
throughout his career. Chutkow commented that both men "were
heavyweights, prolific actors who could play anything from light comedy to
epic drama, and both had a flair for taking quirky characters and making
them poignant and universal."

Depardieu has consistently worked with France's leading film
directors—such as Blier—to great success. In 1979 he
co-starred with respected French actress Isabelle Huppert in Maurice
Pialet's
Loulou
. Playing the title role, Depardieu portrays an unemployed but charming
rogue who lures the bourgeois Huppert away from her traditional life and
friends by his personal magnetism. In the early 1980s Depardieu began
working with respected French director François Truffaut. Their
first collaboration,
Le Dernier Métro
(The Last Metro), paired Depardieu with actress Catherine Deneuve. The
film tells the story of a Jewish theater owner in Paris during the time of
the World War II Nazi occupation. His wife (Deneuve) seeks to protect her
husband from the occupying forces. Depardieu plays an actor trying to
break into legitimate theater; during the course of the film, he develops
a relationship with Deneuve's character. The film was a massive
critical success, garnering many prestigious
César
awards at France's Cannes Film Festival, including a Best Actor
prize for Depardieu.

Prolific and versatile, Depardieu made nearly every type of film
imaginable during the 1980s: drama, romance, comedy, serious film, and
lighthearted fare. Depardieu's 1981 comedy
La Chèvre
(The Goat) was Depardieu's biggest box office success and the
beginning of a three-film series. The last of these three films was
eventually remade in English as
Three Fugitives
, starring Nick Nolte and Martin Short. The following year Depardieu took
a turn in the historical film
La Retour de Martin Guerre
(The Return of Martin Guerre). The movie, based on a true story, portrays
a man who leaves his small medieval village for a stint in the army, and
later returns to reenter the lives of his wife, family, and community.
However, there is a question as to whether the man claiming to be Martin
Guerre is indeed the real Guerre; Depardieu's delicate handling of
the role makes it one of his finest performances.

In the late 1980s Depardieu turned his hand to a different form of
expression: writing. After the death of his mother, Depardieu sought to
tell people of all kinds what he had never said in life through his book,
Lettres volees
(Stolen Letters). Published in 1988, the book was an intensely personal
work displaying another facet of the actor's psyche, and it became
a bestseller in France.

Found Success as Cyrano and in the United States

Depardieu continued to find success with his films throughout the
remainder of the 1980s. However, a project on which he embarked at the
close of the decade would prove to be one of his most career-defining.
Based on the life of a real sixteenth-century man named Cyrano de
Bergerac, the play
Cyrano de Bergerac
was written in the late 1800s and has remained a staple of French
literature since that time. Brought to stage and screen many times
previously, the story returned under the helm of French director Jean-Paul
Rappeneau with Depardieu in the title role. Although Depardieu did not
initially capture the role, by the time shooting began in earnest his
natural ability to weave complex characters had allowed him to immerse
himself in the intricacies the part demanded. In the film Depardieu
portrays a poet and playwright who falls in love with his beautiful cousin
Roxane, but does not believe she will find him attractive because of his
large nose. Depardieu won the
César
at Cannes for his performance, and was nominated for an Academy Award for
the role.

After the success of
Cyrano de Bergerac
, Depardieu took on a new challenge: playing roles in English rather than
his native French. Although his early exposure to English from the
American Air Force base in his hometown had given him a rough grasp of the
language, Depardieu was by no means an expert speaker. Nevertheless, he
paired with American actress Andie MacDowell in the romantic comedy
Green Card
. In the film, the two play a couple who marry for convenience—for
Depardieu, the titular immigration green card—but eventually fall
in love. A few years later Depardieu appeared in another English-language
comedy,
My Father, the Hero
, a remake of his 1991 French film
Mon père ce heros
. In 1996 Depardieu appeared with Whoopi Goldberg and Haley Joel Osment in
the film
Bogus
. Again, Depardieu took the title role, this time as the imaginary friend
of a young boy struggling to accept the death of his mother. It is noted
in the
International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers
that Depardieu's "charisma allows him to transcend the
thinness of the material."

Depardieu appeared in several high-profile projects in the late 1990s,
many based on classic literary works. Appearing as the title characters in
The Count of Monte Cristo
and
Balzac
, Depardieu returned to dramas with great success. He also appeared in a
small role in Kenneth Branagh's film version of William
Shakespeare's classic play
Hamlet
, and in Randall Wallace's English language film
The Man in the Iron Mask
as Porthos, one of the legendary three musketeers.

In the 2000s Depardieu continued to act in diverse films on both sides of
the Atlantic. He appeared in the Disney film
102 Dalmatians
, in the gritty drama
City of Ghosts
, and as a gourmet chef in the Queen Latifah vehicle
Last Holiday
. As well as his performances in Hollywood, Depardieu appeared in French
films such as
Nathalie
, in which he plays the role of a philandering husband—a role in
some ways hearkening back to his first major appearances in the 1970s.

Announced Retirement

Depardieu has many interests outside of acting. A wine enthusiast, he owns
a château and winery where he creates his own vintages. In 2005 he
announced his retirement from acting with characteristic earthy eloquence,
telling the French newspaper
Le Parisien
: "I've got nothing to lose. I did 170 films, and
I've got nothing else to prove. I'm not going to keep up
like this forever…. I retire in style with this film. It's
wonderful." However, in December of 2006,
Variety
announced that Depardieu had joined such per-
formers as Joseph Fiennes, Malcolm McDowell, and Jacqueline Bisset in a
period biographical film based on the life of composer Antonio Vivaldi.
Whether or not Depardieu's career continues at the same frenetic
pace which has marked it over the years, Depardieu's reputation as
one of France's premiere actors is assured.

Books

Chutkow, Paul,
Depardieu: A Biography
, Knopf, 1994.

International Directory of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 2: Actors and
Actresses
, 4th ed., St. James Press, 2000.